1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the art of electrical connectors, and more particularly to an electrical connector provided with a peripheral frame for reinforcing an insulative housing of the electrical connector.
2. General Background
Continued advances in the design of electronic devices for data processing and communications systems have placed rigorous demands on the design of electrical connectors. Specifically, electrical connectors having higher densities and pin counts are needed for design advances which increase integration of solid state devices and which increase the speed of data processing and communication. Designing connectors to have higher densities and higher pin counts requires careful consideration of the problems, which result from the increased pin counts. The number of contact elements that can reasonably withstand the mating and unmating forces is referred to as the pin count. Generally, an insulative housing is employed to hold the contact elements therein. The increasing number of contact elements held within the insulative housing of an electrical connector will require much more load force to be exerted onto the contact elements, which in turn require the insulative housing to have enough strength to receive the load force. Many solutions have been developed for reinforcing the insulative housing. One solution is to attach a reinforcing frame or stiffener to the insulative housing. Such a stiffener may have a substantially rectangular frame defining an opening for grasping outer walls of the insulative housing, with a predetermined clearance set between the outer walls of the insulative housing and the stiffener for some considerations of mechanical connection. On the other hand, the whole connector with such a stiffener attached thereto will in deed take up much more “real estate” of a substrate, which is allotted for active and/or positive components to be equipped thereon. Therefore, there is a need to provide a new electrical connector to solve the above problems.